“Your skin,” she cried. “Goddess, why didn’t you shove me off you?”
“I didn’t mind.”
“You’re covered in blisters.” Her eyes glimmered as they traveled to his face, over his head. “And you’re bald.”
“They shaved my head.” He twitched a shoulder. “It was easier that way.”
Tears falling, she reached over him and dumped the handful of blackened hair onto his head. “There.”
Midas chuckled, and then he laughed, and then he coughed until he tasted blood in his throat.
“Told you I was funny,” she said softly, her eyes full of worry. “What were you thinking?”
“That I had to get to you.”
“You could have been killed.”
“The bomb went off in your apartment. You could have been killed.”
“I, for one, am grateful you’re both still alive.” Mom carried in the water then began to serve them, as she would have at her own table. “The pack is still talking about how Hadley carried you to safety.”
Stunned, Midas stared at Hadley. “I thought I was hallucinating.”
“I did apologize to your ego before I lifted you.” She slid off him to her side of the bed. “That’s not going to cost you points, is it?”
“On the contrary,” Mom assured her. “You’re courting.” She cut him a sharp look that warned he better come clean with her sooner rather than later about the mating. “The pack views your heroics as a positive sign that Midas has chosen a worthy partner.” She bent and kissed Hadley’s forehead. “I am inclined to agree.”
“He pulled me out of the fire,” she stammered. “I would have been trapped there.”
“The pack saw him rush from the meeting straight to your door.” A smile curved her lips. “He won’t lose points on any front.” She patted Hadley on the cheek then removed the clot of hair from Midas’s head and tossed it in the trash. “You behaved as any mated couple should in a time of crisis.”
A frown knit Hadley’s brow, but she let it go. She must have taken Mom’s statement as a future possibility and not a present situation. He was just thankful she didn’t run screaming from the room.
“I didn’t get blown up to avoid family dinner,” she mumbled in the face of her heaping plate.
“No one that dedicated to my son would commit suicide to avoid his mother,” she said lightly as she took her seat. “Now, Hadley.” She bit into a biscuit. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Hadley swallowed audibly and shared a worried glance with him.
He took her hand under the table, and he didn’t let go.
Twelve
When Abbott arrived to brief us on our injuries, I tried my best to look innocent. Since he kept staring down his nose at me like I really had decided to blow myself up for funsies, I assumed it didn’t work. Somewhere along the way, he had become my de facto personal physician, and he wasn’t amused when he was forced to glue me back together.
“Midas has third-degree burns covering one quarter of his skin. He will heal the worst of it within the next thirty-six hours. He’ll be sore, but he will fully recover. Scarring will be minimal.” Abbott used his pen to knock a stubborn black curl off Midas’s head onto the floor. “Hadley is healing much faster than anticipated from smoke inhalation and is otherwise unharmed.”
The room had a watery quality, as if it wasn’t quite real. “Why am I so loopy if I didn’t get hurt?”
“You drew your sword and attempted to skewer one too many nurses. We sedated you to treat Midas.”
“Oh,” I said in a quiet voice. “Sorry about that.”
Midas chuckled under his breath, devolving into a coughing fit that required water to sooth his parched throat.
“It’s fine.” Abbott spread his hands. “It happens more often than you might think.”
That made me feel slightly less like a homicidal freak. Until he assured me the two firemen I had no memory whatsoever of assaulting when they took Midas from me had both been treated and sent home to recover from their injuries.
Oops.
“Bishop is here, if you’re up to seeing him.” Abbott paled before adding, “So is Remy.”
A low growl rumbled through Midas’s chest, but he rubbed his throat, too sore to fuss about her.
Poor Remy.
She wasn’t all that bad once you got to know her, assuming you survived the process. On the other hand, she did have a reputation for attempted vehicular manslaughter where gwyllgi were concerned. I could see how that would make Abbott nervous given Midas had been the target, and he wasn’t at his best.
“Send them in.” Might as well get this over with all at once. “And thanks.”
“It would have been much worse without your help.” He smiled. “Thank you for saving him.”
Uncomfortable with the praise, I squirmed beneath the weight of his gratitude. The tender kiss Midas pressed to my cheek was much easier to bear.
“We missed the party last night.” I frowned at him. “I assume? I have no idea what day or time it is.”
“Pretty safe bet,” he agreed. “That means the drug has been distributed to sellers.”
“Great.” I drank more water to lubricate my dry mouth. “Now we’ll be chopping the heads off hydras.”
“We need to take out the source,” Bishop said, entering the room on a cold breeze. “We’re going to kill those sons of bitches.” He crossed to me, yanked me into a hug that brought up the coughs I was trying to suppress, and pulled back to look me over. “I’m glad you’re okay, kid.”
“Me too,” Remy chimed in. “I’m vague on the legalities of taking over a business after the owner dies.” No one said a word, and she swallowed. “What? I’m happy you’re not dead. You’re the only boss I’ve ever had who didn’t fire me within my first week.”
“Your concern humbles me,” I said dryly. “Truly.”
“Hey, I did you a solid.” She dug into the paper bag of leftovers for the container the mashed potatoes came in and scooped out the remnants with her finger. “I sent a few friends to the party, and let me tell you, the things they saw…”
When she moved on to eating the wedges the gwyllgi had only picked at, I prompted her. “What did they see?”
“The vampires, the wargs, and the fae all bought in. The necromancers and the gwyllgi passed.” She crunched through the cold potato. “Here’s where it gets interesting.” She wiped her hands on her shirt. “The gwyllgi and necromancer representatives were from out of state, right? No one local wanted to go up against Tisdale or Linus if they got caught peddling lethal—to their species—drugs.”
“Okay.”
“When they passed on the buy-in, Blithe made an example of them. She had them bound, carried up front, and force-fed them Faete.” Remy shivered. “The necromancer died within minutes. The gwyllgi took a lot longer.” She wet her lips. “I figure its body was regenerating damaged tissue as fast as the drug destroyed it, but the drug won out in the end.”